1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-processing method, and an image-processing device for performing image processing, and a storage medium for storing a software program of the image-processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
To present an output image based on image data on a printer or a display unit, color processes, such as a color correction process, a color conversion process, and a binarizing process need to be performed according to the type of a plurality of objects forming the output image. In the printing or displaying of an image formed by computer application software, a device driver or a device images a group of rendering commands from the application software, thereby producing image data on an entire page, and then printing the image on the printer or displaying the image on the display unit.
The rendering command group constituting a document issues, to the device driver, an image rendering command for a photograph image portion, a text rendering command for a text portion, and a graphic rendering command for a graphics portion of the image. The device driver performs a color process appropriate for the object according to the type of each command, and converts the document into an image which can be output by an output device.
The color matching process is switched to a “saturation mode” for the graphics portion, to a “colorimetric agreement mode”, for the text portion, or to a “perceptual color enhancement mode”, for the photograph portion so that an optimum output is provided in each object on an entire page.
Depending on a system or application software, a “source profile” is designated for the object, and the device driver thus provides a high-quality output using the content of the designated source profile. When an input image from a scanner is pasted onto a document, a color profile describing device characteristics of the scanner is designated in an image rendering command of the image. When color calibration is performed on a display, a color profile, describing the characteristics of the monitor to be used to reproduce the color which an editor may has seen, may be designated. These color profiles may be an ICC (International Color Consortium) profile, for example, and Windows ICM manufactured by Microsoft and ColorSync manufactured by Apple Computer Inc. are known.
Even with such a fine color matching process system available, no high-quality output will be obtained if an original image itself is poor. For instance, when an image is picked up by a recently widely used digital camera with an insufficient exposure, a conventional system prints faithfully an insufficiently exposed picture on a printer as is. The result is not always successful. To improve the output image, a user has performed, on an entire original image, an image correction process, such as a non-linear color balance process, for compensating for the exposure of the original image using an image retouch software program, for example.
Without deep knowledge and experience, the user needs to perform a correction process on a trial and error basis, and the correction process is thus time-consuming.
When an image correction is performed on a photograph portion only of an original image in a DTP (Desk Top Publishing) document which is an existing document with an unprocessed photograph pasted, the photograph portion is cut from the original image. A retouch software program is used to perform an image correction process on the photograph portion. The retouched photograph portion is then pasted back on the original image. This series of steps is complex.